State Rep. Alicia Reece, a Democrat, is not happy with
what she sees as another attempt at voter suppression. Reece claims a
new billboard, which reads “Voter Fraud is a Felony,” is meant to
intimidate voters — particularly voters in low-income and black
neighborhoods. The company hosting the billboards says there are 30
billboards like it in Greater Cincinnati and the sponsor of the
billboards, who chose to remain anonymous, did not ask to target any
specific demographic.

The second presidential debate is tonight at 9 p.m. All
eyes are on President Barack Obama to deliver a better performance than
he did in the last debate against Mitt Romney. The media was quick to
jump on the post-debate bounce in polls Romney experienced a mere week
after the debate, but political scientists say debates typically don’t have much political significance
in the long term. Still, the debate will be a good opportunity for
Obama and Romney to flesh out their positions and show their abilities to reach out to the public. The full schedule of the remaining debates
can be found here. The agreed-upon rules to the debates were leaked
yesterday. One notable rule says the candidates may not ask each other
any direct questions during any of the debates. Both the Romney and Obama campaigns made a fuss about tonight's debate moderator possibly asking follow-up questions.

But the debate isn’t the only important presidential test
this week. While in Youngstown, Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential
nominee, tried to show he can pass the dish washing test, but little did
he know that savvy media outlets were ready to call him out on his
dishonesty. Brian Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De
Paul Society, said Ryan was only at the group’s soup kitchen for the
picture and didn’t do much work. The visit apparently angered Antal, who
said his charity group is supposed to be nonpartisan.

The race for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat saw its first of
three debates yesterday. At the debate, Democratic incumbent Sherrod
Brown and Republican challenger Josh Mandel agreed on very little, and
they did not have many kind words for each other. Mandel criticized
Brown for the auto bailout, liberal economic policies and inability to
get a budget through the Senate. Brown criticized Mandel for alleged
cronyism in the state treasurer’s office, dishonesty on the campaign
trail and support for trickle-down economics. The next debate is in
Columbus on Thursday, and the two men will face off one last time in
Cincinnati on Oct. 25.

Ohio is still weighing options regarding a Medicaid
expansion. Critics of the expansion are worried the expansion would cost
the state too much money. However, previous research shows Medicaid
expansions can actually save states money by lowering the amount of
uncompensated care. Medicaid expansions in other states also notably
improved lives.

One analyst says Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble will see stronger growth in the future.

A controversial ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court is
sparking some local debate. The ruling said juveniles are not entitled
to an attorney during police interrogations preceding a charge or
initial appearance at juvenile court. Under state law, juveniles are
allowed to have attorneys during “proceedings,” and the Ohio Supreme
Court interpreted “proceedings” to mean “court proceedings.”

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced 6,665
new entities filed to do business in Ohio in September. The number is up
from September 2011, when 6,143 new entities filed to do business; but
it’s down from August 2012, when 7,341 entities asked to do business in
Ohio. The numbers show a steady economic recovery.

The Ohio Turnpike may get a few changes soon. A new Ohio
Department of Transportation (ODOT) study shows a few options for Gov.
John Kasich’s administration: lease the turnpike, give it over to ODOT
or leave it alone. If the turnpike is leased or handed over to ODOT,
tolls will likely rise to keep up with inflation and two maintenance facilities will shut down. However, the revenue generated could be used
for new transportation projects — a goal for the Kasich administration.
Kasich is set to make his decision in about a month.

Media musings on Cincinnati and beyond

• Look at the rare collection of Enquirer photos at the National Underground Freedom Center. They’ve been reprinted and for many, reprinted copies of original pages are nearby.

The show is part of the much larger Fotofocus at many venues. Unfortunately, the Enquirer chose the Freedom Center which charges $12 admission; many Fotofocus displays are in admission-free venues such as the YWCA or UC’s Gallery on Sycamore.

I think the oldest photo is from 1948, a one-legged veteran leading a parade to commemorate the end of WWI 30 years earlier. Many are by photographers with whom I worked and whose images I displayed large on local pages during weekends when I edited. Some are recent, by photographers I admire but know only from their images in the paper.

To its credit, the Enquirer exhibit includes unpublished photos of which the photographers are justly proud. First among them is Gary Landers’ image of a homicide victim illuminated by an officer’s flashlight behind Landers’ home.

Missing are two images that remind me of what photojournalism is about. One is Gerry Wolters’ stunning — and in its time, controversial Pulitzer contender — of a dead African-American lying in a pool of his blood on the Avondale street where he’d been shot by a bailbondsman. Standing over him is the dead man’s young son. Some readers said our photo would ruin the child’s life. No, I told callers, if anything would it was his father’s killing.

The other missing photo was one that wasn’t published by the paper: Glenn Hartong’s firefighter carrying a toddler from a burning house. I’m told that editors flinched because they didn’t know if the child survived. So what? That faux humanity illustrates Enquirer execs’ fear of readers tossing their cookies into the Cheerios. Such touchy-feely screening sanitizes what can be a nasty, brutish and short life and lifestyle in our region. Life Magazine published Hartong’s photo across two pages and someone posted it in the Enquirer newsroom coffee alley. It doesn’t get better than that.

In the Good Old Days, before self-inflicted sensitivity, the Enquirer had a unapologetic double standard for violent images. If the victim were local, the photo might be spiked to avoid upsetting readers. An example was the half-excavated body of a recognizable young construction worker suffocated in a trench cave-in. Distant victims — executions, genocide or bodies in floods/earthquakes — were likelier to be displayed.

And even before the Good Old Days, Ed Reinke’s iconic photo of a line of shrouded bodies from the 1977 Beverly Hills supper club fire gave a sense of magnitude to the disaster that our best reporting couldn’t. It’s the first photo in the exhibit, preceded by a warning that some images could be troubling. They should be. I don’t know if Reinke’s photo would be used today.

• Ohio’s Sherrod Brown is among the Democratic senators targeted by out-of-state billionaire GOP donors. He’s an unapologetic liberal and the Progressive monthly made Brown’s re-election battle its latest cover story. A point I’d missed elsewhere is the unusual state FOP endorsement for a Democrat but Brown stood with officers against Republican legislation stripping them of most of their bargaining rights.

The Progressive story includes a Mason-area jeweler whose health insurer refused to pay for an advanced cancer treatment. Husband and wife say Reps. Jean Schmidt and John Boehner brushed off their pleas to intervene with the insurer. A Brown staffer — who said she didn’t care what party the Republican couple belongs to — spent the weekend successfully persuading the insurer to cover the potentially life-saving $100,000 procedure.

More recently, reporters on Diane Rehm’s public radio show estimated SuperPACs are spending $20 million to defeat Brown and suggested it might not suffice. As a DailyBeast.com columnist notes, polls show Republican Josh Mandel probably won’t even carry his home Jewish community in Cleveland.

• That same Progressive names 26 billionaires and their known donations to Republican and other rightwing causes in this election year. No Cincinnati-area men or women made the list but it’s reasonable to infer that some of the men listed donated secretly to Super PACs opposing Ohio’s Sherrod Brown’s re-election (see above).

• As one of that dying breed — an Enquirer subscriber who prefers print — my morning paper is missing a lot. Customer service provided a free online copy and promised to deliver the missing paper paper the next day. Next day? Another customer service rep said only replacement Sunday Enquirers are delivered the same day. Message? Don’t stiff advertisers.

• The ad on the top half of the back page of the Oct. 11 Enquirer Local section invited everyone to a Romney-Ryan “victory event” on Oct. 13 at Lebanon’s Golden Lamb. The bold, black ad headline on the bottom half of the page was “The #1 dishwasher is also a best value.”

• Want to know more about Sarah Jones, the former Ben-Gal and school teacher who admitted to sex with a 17-year-old student? Among others, London’s Daily Mail has enough to satisfy anyone who doesn’t need to see a sex tape.

• Don’t piss off Turks. That’s a lesson lots of people have learned to their pain over the generations. No one will be surprised if Turkish forces invade Syria to end Syrian shelling of Turkish civilians. Turkish troops have gone into Iraq to deal with threatening rebellious Turkish Kurds seeking sanctuary there. Turkey is a NATO member and NATO says it will defend Turkey if required. A couple English-language websites can complement the snippets about this aspect of Syria’s civil war: aljazeera.com from the Gulf and hurriyetdailynews.com from Turkey.

• The New York Times stepped back from the slippery slope of allowing subjects of news stories to say what news is fit to print. It allowed some sources to review and possibly change their quotes before reporters used them. In July, Times reporter Jeremy Peters blew the whistle on the Times and other major news media. The alternative to quote approval often was the threat of no interview. Initially, the Times defended the practice. No longer. Jimromenesko.com reported the change.

Times executive editor Jill Abramson told Romenesko that quote approval “puts so much control over the content of journalism in the wrong place . . . We need a tighter policy.”

Romenesko quoted a recent Times memorandum that said “demands for after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides have gone too far . . . The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources. In its most extreme form, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview . . . So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.”

Good. Here’s my question: What happens when a beat reporter can’t get an important interview after citing Times policy? Access is everything. Few people who want media attention will turn away the Times, but editors can get weird when reporters can’t get a desired interview.

• Daily papers own and are members of the Associated Press. In their rush to be first, AP reporters used social media to get out the news and scooped member papers whose editors hadn’t seen the stories yet. That went over badly in today’s breathlessly competitive world. AP promises it won’t use social media until after breaking news is sent to members and non-member subscribers. • It’s time for the news media to abandon “reverse discrimination” when the purported victim is white and English-speaking. It’s an issue again because the U.S. Supreme Court is reconsidering university racial admission criteria. A young woman claims the University of Texas rejected her because she is white.

Discrimination is discrimination; someone is favored and someone is rejected. I won’t anticipate the court’s decision but the ethical issue is whether the community’s or the individual’s compelling interests are paramount when discrimination becomes policy and practice. Moreover, demographic trends could make “reverse discrimination” obvious nonsense if Anglos become a minority among newly-hyphenated and darker-skinned Americans and immigrants from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

• We’ve seen three debates, two presidential, one veepish. The third was Tuesday or last night if you’re reading this on Wednesday. I missed it; I was fishing in Canada. Other journalists will tell you what you heard really means. I’ll catch up when I get home. At least the Biden-Ryan contest was lively and the moderator asked smart, sharp questions and kept the politicians under control.

• The vice president and challenger had disturbingly weird expressions when they listened. Biden’s smile recalled a colleague’s remark after waterskiing with me: “I saw Ben smile and he wasn’t baring his teeth.” Worse, Biden’s expression could appear to be a smirk. Ryan’s intensity reminded me of a predator wondering about its next meal. Neither appearance had anything to do with the substance of the debate but it’s how we tend to judge people we don’t know. My question: Is this really how we choose the man one heartbeat away from leadership of The Free World (whatever the hell that means)?

• Viewers — and these performances are TV events — worry me. Too many tell reporters and pollsters that their votes can be influenced by how the candidates came across in the debates. The president and vice president do not belong to debating societies. This isn’t Britain’s House of Commons. The ability to “win” a televised encounter has little or nothing to do with the job for which the men are contesting. Winners won’t debate until and unless they seek office again.

• News media would be in doldrums if there weren’t stories to write before and after each debate. They burn space and time when little else is happening - if you discount the economy, pestilence, war, famine, etc.

• Stories I didn’t read beyond the headlines. One’s from HuffingtonPost.com: "Lindsay Lohan Reveals Her Pick For President"The other is from the Thedailybeast.com:"LINDSAY LOHAN PICKS MITT! & OTHER TOXIC ENDORSEMENTS"

The final presidential debate is tonight. It will cover
foreign policy. The debate will likely focus on the recent attack on
the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya and Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever happens, political
scientists say debates typically have little-to-no electoral impact. In
aggregate polling, Obama is up 2.2 pointsin Ohio and Romney is up 0.3 pointsnationally. Ohio is considered a must-win for Romney, and it could play the role of 2000's Florida. The debate begins at 9 p.m. It will be streamed live on YouTube and C-SPAN.

CityBeat will host a debate party tonight at MOTR
Pub in Over-the-Rhine from 7:30-10:30 p.m. Come watch the debate and live
tweet. Councilman Chris Seelbach will make an appearance. If you can’t
show up, at least tweet if you watch the debate with the hashtag
#cbdebate. Check out the event’s Facebook page for more information.

If Gov. John Kasich gets his way, 60 percent of bachelor’s
degrees will be completable in three years by 2014. The move intends to
raise graduation rates and save money for students. Currently, very few
students graduate in three years. Only 1 percent of Miami University
students and 2 percent of University of Cincinnati students graduate
that quickly.

Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, a new education
policy approved by Kasich that requires all students to be proficient in
reading in third grade before they can move onto fourth grade, could
cause 40 percent of students to be held back in some schools.
The policy is meant to encourage better progress and higher reading standards, but some studies
have found retention has negative effects on children.

The Urban League of Greater Cincinnati announced a merger
and expansion into Dayton. The organization will now be called the Urban
League of Southwest Ohio.

Greater Cincinnati home sales ticked up in September, but there was some slowdown.

The end of the Scripps trust that funded the
Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Company could lead to the end of a few
newspapers. But Ohio will not be affected; the company no longer owns
newspapers in the state.

The first of three debates for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat is
today. Incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Josh
Mandel will meet for the first time to prove who has the better vision
for the state. Democrats have repeatedly criticized Mandel for
dishonesty and dodging questions. Republicans have criticized Brown for
supporting President Barack Obama’s policies, including the auto bailout
and Obamacare. A more substantive analysis of the candidates’
differences can be found here. In aggregate polling, Brown currently
leads by five points. The debate will be at 12:30 p.m. on C-SPAN.

Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president,
will be in Cincinnati today. Ryan’s event will take place at Lunken
Airport at noon. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, was
in Lebanon Saturday. With the second presidential debate between
President Barack Obama and Romney tomorrow, both campaigns are turning
up the events in Ohio, a state that is widely considered a must-win for both candidates. According
to aggregate polling, Obama still holds Ohio by 2.2 points despite a
nationwide post-debate bounce in the polls for Romney.

Bicyclists rejoiced Saturday as McMillan Street was
converted back into a two-way street. William Howard Taft Road will
undergo a similar transition Oct. 20. The conversion of both roads came
thanks to the approval of Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, who pushed the
motion in order to revitalize the business sector in the neighborhood.

The rest of Ohio’s school report card data will be
released Wednesday. The report card data grades schools to see how
school districts are doing in a variety of categories. The release for
the data was initially delayed due to an ongoing investigation by the
state auditor that’s looking into accusations of attendance reporting
fraud at some school districts. Previously, the state auditor released
preliminary findings criticizing some school districts and the Ohio
Department of Education for some findings regarding attendance fraud.

A new report found Cincinnati still has a lot of work to
do. The city ranked No. 10 out of 12 similar cities. Cincinnati excelled
in job creation and housing opportunities, but it did poorly in
categories regarding migration and age.

Bob Taft, former Republican governor of Ohio, is going
green. The Ohio Environmental Council is rewarding Taft for
standing up for the environment during his gubernatorial term.

In the U.S. Senate race, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown leads Republican challenger Josh Mandel by 5 points in aggregate polling. CityBeat covered the policy and campaign differences between the two candidates in coverage of the first, second and third debate and a cover story.

Gov. John Kasich has taken a noticeable shift to the
center and considered less divisive ideas in recent months, and some of that might be
to help Romney’s electoral chances in Ohio.
In the past two years, Kasich went from supporting SB 5, which would
have limited collective bargaining for public employees, to focusing
almost entirely on jobs.

Cincinnati’s Oakley neighborhood might soon put its traffic problems in the past. City Council is expected to vote on a plan Wednesday
that would block three streets in the neighborhood. Residents have
complained traffic is out of control because of development at the
Rookwood Exchange in Norwood, and traffic could get worse due to the
holiday shopping season.

Workers injured during the construction of Cincinnati’s Horseshoe Casino are looking for a way around workers comp rules.
The exemption-seeking lawsuit filed by four workers against 13
defendants is typical in Ohio law, which generally prevents workers from
suing employers over workplace injuries since Ohio’s compensation rules
provide ways to obtain missing wages and other potential damages.

A new partnership between the Memorial Hall Society, 3CDC and Hamilton County’s commissioners may revitalize Hamilton County’s Memorial Hall.
The hall is one of Hamilton County’s architectural treasures, but a
lack of renovations has left it behind modern developments, including
air conditioning.

Some of Ohio’s exotic animal owners are not happy with a
new law that requires registering and micro-chipping exotic animals, so
they are suing the state.

The final presidential debate between President Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney was last night. The general consensus from media
pundits is Obama won by a substantial margin. But political scientists
say debates typically have negligible electoral impact. In aggregate
polling, Obama is up in Ohio by 1.9 points and Romney is up nationally
by 0.6 points. Ohio is looking like a must-win state for both campaigns,
so Obama’s advantage there is a very bad sign for Romney.
FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times’ election forecast blog, has an explanation of how and why the current electoral landscape favors Obama.

In a follow-up to the debate, Romney will be visiting Greater Cincinnati Thursday.

A new motion by City Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan could
encourage more people and businesses to make use of the city’s LEED
program. The program uses special tax exemptions to encourage buildings
to be cleaner and greener.

Cincinnati’s City Planning Commission approved Plan
Cincinnati Friday. With the approval, the plan’s only hurdle is City
Council. If passed, the plan will reform city policies to put a new
emphasis on the city’s urban core. That means a cleaner, greener city
with more transportation options, ranging from walking and biking to the
streetcar and rail. CityBeat wrote about Plan Cincinnati here. The full plan can be found here.

Three Republicans in the state legislature, including
Cincinnati’s Sen. Bill Seitz and Rep. Louis Tehrar, introduced a
bill that would require health insurance providers to cover autism. Critics
say the move could cost small businesses too much during an economic
downturn, but supporters say it’s necessary to Ohio’s mental health
coverage requirement, which was passed in 2007. Seitz says the bill
could also save money by bringing down special education costs.

In a sign of Ohio's education funding problems, one report found two of three Ohio school levies are asking for
additional funding. But Cincinnati Public Schools’ (CPS) levy will only
not ask for extra funding or higher taxes; instead, it asks for funding
and taxes to remain the same. CityBeat covered Issue 42, the CPS levy, in-depth here.

Despite what a recent conflict between Commissioner Greg
Hartmann and Mayor Mark Mallory implies, Cincinnati and Hamilton County
are working together. The city and county are cooperating on the Banks
project, funding the Port Authority and operating the Metropolitan Sewer
District.

Cincinnati is working harder to enforce a chronic nuisance
disorder. A property is classified as a chronic nuisance when it
surpasses a certain amount of crimes and violations. The law is meant to
hold property owners accountable for what happens in their buildings.

There are more signs that Ohio’s fracking boom may not be
sustainable. Natural gas producers are not seeing the profits they
expected from the boom. For many, the boom is quickly turning into a
bust. Still, natural gas prices have massively dropped, and an analysis
at The Washington Post suggests natural gas could play an important role in reducing carbon emissions. CityBeat wrote in-depth about the fracking boom in Ohio and the faulty regulations on the industry here.

Mandel is being taken to court by liberal blog
Plunderbund. The blog claims Mandel has made it extra difficult to get
public records.

Preliminary data for Ohio schools was released yesterday.
Some data is still being held back while an investigation into
fraudulent reporting from some schools is finished, but the data gives some insight into how
schools performed during the 2011-2012 school year. The data can be
found here. From a local angle, the data shows Cincinnati Public
Schools (CPS) did not meet “adequate yearly progress,” a federal standard that
measures progress in student subgroups, such as minority groups; but CPS
did meet standards for “value-added growth,” which measures the
expected progress in state testing for all students between the third
and eighth grades.

City Council approved the $29 million financing plan for
the streetcar yesterday. The plan will use $15 million from the Blue Ash
airport deal to move utility lines and pipes. The city claims the $15
million, which was originally promised to neighborhood projects, will
be reimbursed by Duke Energy once the city settles a conflict with the
energy company. Duke and the city are currently arguing over who has to
pay to move the utility lines and pipes.

An Ohio state representative is asking the federal
government to monitor the election more closely. Rep. Alicia Reece, a
Cincinnati Democrat, is asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to send monitors
to the state to ensure no funny business goes on in voting booths on
Nov. 6. The request is partly in response to a recent court ruling
that forces Ohio to count provisional ballots if the ballots were
brought around by poll worker errors.

Ohio’s ability to stop political lies was upheld
yesterday. The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes
(COAST) tried to put an end to the government power, which COAST claimed
was censorship, by taking it to court, but a U.S. judge upheld the
ability. The judge, who is a former chairman of the Hamilton County
Republican Party, said COAST did not properly display that its speech was held
down by the law. Considering some of COAST’s tweets, the judge is
probably right.

Ohio might expand Medicaid, but not to the extent asked
for by Obamacare. That’s what the state’s Medicaid director said
yesterday, anyway. A previous study found Medicaid expansions improved and might
have saved lives in other states, and other studies have found Medicaid
expansions may save the state money by cutting uncompensated costs.

Gov. John Kasich signed a series of bills shoring up
Ohio’s public pension system yesterday. The laws will cut benefits
and raise eligibility requirements, but state officials insist the new
laws will mostly affect future retirees.

NASA wants samples from Mars, and it has a plan. The new plan may require a robot-to-human hand-off in space.

The second presidential debate between President Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney took place last night. The general consensus from the
media is Obama won. Although the victory will likely inspire an Obama
comeback narrative for some political pundits, keep in mind political
scientists say debates typically have little electoral impact. But
debates can reveal substance, and The Washington Post has an
article “footnoting” the policy specifics from the debate. As of today,
aggregate polling shows Obama up in Ohio by 2.2 points and Romney up
nationally by 0.4 points. Ohio is widely considered a must-win for
Romney. Obama and Romney will have their final debate next Monday. CityBeat will be hosting an event at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine during the debate. More info can be found on the event’s Facebook page.

The Ohio Department of Education released its remaining
school report card data today. The data is meant to give Ohioans a clear
picture as to whether schools are improving. The data was delayed due
to an ongoing investigation into attendance rigging at Ohio schools. In
the new report card data, Cincinnati Public Schools was downgraded from
“Effective” in the 2010-2011 school year to “Continuous Improvement” in
the 2011-2012 school year. The new mark is still positive, but it is a
downgrade.

Down goes Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s early
voting appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. With the Supreme Court refusing
to take up Husted’s appeal, Ohio must allow all voters to vote on the
weekend and Monday before Election Day. Husted also sent out a directive
enforcing uniform voting hours for the three days. On Saturday, booths will be open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. On Monday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It seems City Council action was not enough to get Duke
Energy to budge on the streetcar. The local energy company says it wants
an operating agreement before it starts construction work. On Sept. 24,
City Council passed a funding deal that shifted $15 million from the
Blue Ash airport deal to the streetcar and established $14 million
through a new financing plan. The city says it will get the $15
million back if it wins in the dispute with Duke. The city claims it’s
Duke’s responsibility to pay for moving utility pipes and lines to
accommodate for the streetcar, but Duke insists it’s the city’s
responsibility.

The University Board of Trustees is expected to approve
Santa Ono as UC’s new president. Ono has been serving as interim
president ever since Greg Williams abruptly resigned, citing personal
reasons.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital announced a big
breakthrough in combating muscular dystrophy. The hospital claims it
successfully installed a device in a patient with Duchenne muscular
dystrophy that allows the patient’s heart to pump blood to the body in
the long term.

With Gov. John Kasich's recommendation, Ohio universities
will have cheaper, quicker options for students. A new provision will
require 10 percent of bachelor’s degrees from public universities to be
completable in three years instead of four.

Ohio’s attorney general wants help in solving an unsolved
double homicide in Cincinnati. Attorney General Mike DeWine has recently
fixated on cold cases — previously unsolved cases that could be solved
with new information and tools.

City Council approved a $29 million plan that will shift $15 million
from the Blue Ash airport deal to
move utility lines and pipes in order to accommodate for streetcar
tracks. The money will be reimbursed if a conflict with Duke Energy is settled in the city’s favor. The city is currently trying to resolve the conflict over who has to pay for moving utility lines
and pipes. If the city wins out, Duke will have to pay up, and the money
from the Blue Ash airport deal will be put back
where it belongs. If Duke wins out, that money could be lost forever — a
worry Chris Smitherman voiced in the public City Council session.
Smitherman, Charlie Winburn and P.G. Sittenfeld voted against the plan,
and Roxanne Qualls, Laure Quinlivan, Yvette Simpson, Cecil Thomas,
Wendell Young and Chris Seelbach voted for it.

CORRECTION: This blog originally said the entire $29 million plan will be reimbursed by
Duke. Only the $15 million from the Blue Ash airport deal will be
reimbursed if the city wins in the dispute.

The state launched a new website to connect Ohio job seekers and
opportunities in the energy industry. The website presents opportunities in
advanced energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency and gas and oil.

Newspapers all around the state — including The Cincinnati Enquirer, which labelled its article an “Enquirer Exclusive” (both The Toledo Blade and Columbus Dispatch ran a story with the same angle as The Enquirer)
— are really excited about a new poll that found Sen. Sherrod Brown
leads Josh Mandel in the U.S. senatorial race for Ohio’s seat by 7
percent. But the poll only confirms what aggregate polling has been
saying for a while now.

Mayor Mark Mallory fired back at Commissioner Greg
Hartmann Friday. In a letter Tuesday, Hartmann accused Mallory of
failing to stick to his promises in support of a city-council committee that
would have established greater collaboration between Cincinnati and Hamilton
County governments. But in his letter, Mallory said the committee was
unnecessary and Hartmann was just playing politics by sending a letter
to media instead of calling the mayor on his cell phone.

Contrary to the claims of Mitt Romney’s campaign,
President Barack Obama does care about the work requirements in
welfare-to-work reform. In fact, Obama is disapproving of Ohio’s
program, which his administration says has not enforced work
requirements stringently enough. However, most of the blame is going to
former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, not Gov. John Kasich, a
Republican.

Local homeless groups managed to get a hold of a $600,000
grant to aid homeless military veterans. The grant will provide
financial assistance and job training for the currently homeless and
vets at risk of becoming homeless.

City Council will host a special session today to get
public feedback and work on the new deal meant to prevent further
streetcar delays. The meeting will be at 10:30 a.m. at City Council
Chambers, City Hall room 300, 801 Plum St.

Citizens for Common Sense was formed to support Issue 4 on the November ballot, which changes City Council terms
from two to four years. The initiative would let political candidates
worry more about policy and less about campaigning, but some critics say
it would make it more difficult to hold council members accountable.